


Efficiency

by shinobi93



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To be the CEO of a major company, you must be organised and decisive. It's a shame Pepper Potts' love life chooses to be neither of those things. Still, her life's so crazy these days, she really should have expected it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Efficiency

**Author's Note:**

> This was an experiment with a different writing style and a pairing I've never written for, so I hope it went okay. I was inspired by someone making the point that there just aren't enough fics with Pepper/Natasha as the main pairing, which obviously my one won't rectify, but it's something.

Pepper Potts prided herself on efficiency. When you were CEO of Stark Industries (and had been de facto CEO for even longer), there wasn’t time for anything else, especially not when Tony Stark seemed to believe ‘efficiency’ only applied to energy and not to him. She dealt with meetings and paperwork, complicated business decisions and stressed SHIELD liaisons. There was nothing like having an incredibly important company meeting interrupted for damage control because the genius behind said company had destroyed an ice cream parlor after an incident involving Hawkeye, two cats and what both Avengers would claim to be a ‘national emergency’. Pepper Potts did not have time for confusion.

Even her and Tony’s breakup had been surprisingly efficient, once you looked past the four days he spent locked in his workshop afterwards. One very intense argument, concluded with the line “No, Tony, I’m breaking up with you because you’re reckless, unreliable, a hazard to everyone around you and you’re so in love with Captain America I’m surprised you haven’t repainted the tower red, white and blue”, and it was over. Mostly, she had felt relieved. Sure, she’d gone home and cried, those ridiculously uncontrollable sobs that she was glad no one saw, but a lot of that was pent up emotion and nerves. Tony hadn’t really argued back, just looked at her sadly like even he expected this. She couldn’t handle his issues any more, it was too much, so she’d finally said ‘no more’.

All this was months ago now though, busy months of work and corporate socializing and trying not to look at how often you’d find Tony at Steve Rogers’ side, apparently still oblivious as to why he was always there. Regardless of her role in the breakup, it still stung. Perhaps thankfully, she had little time for brooding over it, as Stark Industries had unveiled new green energy initiatives and released disclaimer after disclaimer stating that Iron Man did not represent the interests of the company. Things were simply, in that she didn’t have the hours in the day to consider a love life. And then, it got complicated.

It had all started about eight weeks previously, when there had been a knock at her apartment door. In had walked Natasha, not looking like she was a spy who had worked for Pepper whilst undercover and now was part of a superhero team with her ex-boyfriend. Sometimes Pepper wondered how this was her life.

Natasha was dressed casually, although the leather jacket seemed like a compromise between civilian clothes and her actual preference to Pepper. She’d explained she was there on SHIELD duty and had gone through a bunch of legal stuff with Pepper that was relevant to Stark Industries and the tech Tony kept making for the Avengers. Nothing exciting, but it beat guys in suits who did a bad job of disguising their incredulity that Pepper was CEO. And finally, Natasha asked her how she was doing and they ended up chatting, making jokes about the rest of the Avengers and complaining about hectic work schedules. Tension hummed underneath their words, both aware of the past but doing very good jobs of ignoring it. Pepper made a sarcastic comment about inviting Steve to important company meetings in the hope that might bring a Tony trailing in his wake and Natasha laughed, lighting up her face so that it seemed, just for a moment, slightly less guarded. Pepper never questioned why Natasha hadn’t just gone to her office, the one which was now just a few floors below where the spy lived in Stark Tower.

After that, Natasha had become her unofficial SHIELD contact and also, slowly, her friend. Once they’d discussed liability issues surrounding having the Hulk housed just above your company’s New York office, they would chat about whatever they felt like and told anecdotes that tended to send them both into fits of laughter. It wasn’t all fun, however. Natasha was frustrated with her inability to do much other than Avengers stuff now that she’d been shown on the news footage and badly taken photographs that almost always missed the most important part of a fight. She’d rant about it, normally when they were on the sofa in Pepper’s apartment sipping drinks, and in return Pepper would shout about incompetent employees and misogynistic businessmen and trying to make Tony Stark sign the right papers (even though the latter wasn’t technically her job any more). No matter how angry Natasha got, Pepper remained slightly grateful for the turn of events, knowing that she wouldn’t have had time to be her SHIELD contact (or threaten them into giving her the role, which Pepper suspected she’d done) otherwise. For Pepper, it wasn’t just one of the few friendships she had time for these days. It was a chance to relax and put her life in perspective with a not-so-secret-anymore agent’s.

This, Pepper could handle: it was a good, if very complicated underneath, friendship with one of the few people out there she could discuss the issues of having dated a superhero with. Despite all her intelligence, Pepper didn’t notice anything else was going on at first, had no inkling until she realised she was comparing Natasha to Tony. She also constantly faced the threat of danger, but was less reckless, and better at keeping in touch, even with a friend. Natasha wasn’t a genius, but she also wasn’t so unbelievably stupid, which all in all made her much less high maintenance. The real problem came, however, when she noticed how much she liked to make the other woman laugh, to seem that little bit more relaxed than her usual high state of alert, her red curls dancing around her face. It felt more significant than even the horrible twisting sensation in her stomach when she knew the Avengers were off fighting; not the same feelings she’d had whenever Tony was going off the rails, calmer, but still worried that someone she’d grown to care about was fighting aliens and robots and crazed villains.

The final irrevocable proof that she, Pepper Potts, had undefinable-as-of-yet but definitely there feelings for Natasha - the Avenger, SHIELD agent, her friend - came on a Thursday evening. She had just found out, via a very awkward conversation in which Tony Stark had been uncharacteristically lost for words, that he and Steve had finally done something about the adoring glances and sexual tension that had driven the other Avengers slowly out of their minds. Natasha had turned up at her apartment and started the conversation with “Thank fuck they’ve done something, but are you alright?” (they didn’t feel the need to hold back any more, they knew each other’s boundaries).

Pepper was alright, mostly. She couldn’t find the words to explain the annoying inefficiency of her current situation, the uncertainty that was about to become more certain as the usual defensive woman reached out to grab Pepper’s arm as she stumbled getting up to fetch a glass of water. A crackle ran down her arm, a spark of something, a sense of excitement. Not exactly the evening she’d expected to discover such a thing.

Since then, she’d done nothing. Partly because there had been no time, she had a company to run after all, and partly because she didn’t know what to do. Could she go up to someone who’d lied to her (for her job, but still), who worked on a team with her it’s-complicated-because-I-still-run-his-company ex, who was a deadly assassin, and say “I don’t even know if you’d be interested, but would you like to go on a date?”. It suddenly had felt too intimidating to ask someone who regularly saved the world if they wanted to go out and have dinner some time, despite having already dated Iron Man. She knew it shouldn’t be this complicated, but it was difficult not to over think it.

Finally, one evening, laying in bed, she resolved to ask the damn question, quickly and neatly, and act like the decisive CEO she was in all other aspects of her life. For the same reason that it had taken for him to be constantly staring at Captain America for her to say something to Tony, it would require a bit more work to say something to Natasha. Pepper had an inefficient love life. The next day, she was up in the Avengers’ living quarters personally threatening to remove Tony’s coffee supply if he didn’t attend the following day’s meeting, and when she left, Clint appeared out of nowhere and winked at her, murmuring “Just say it”. In a second he was gone, maybe only a trick of her mind.

That evening, as Natasha turned to leave from one of their usual chats, Pepper uttered the question, determined, with no unnecessary words.

“Will you go out with me?”

Natasha smiled, that relaxed light in her eyes again. “Of course. As long as by ‘go out’, you mean stay in, cook and see how it goes. Going out requires too many hidden weapons for a really good date, at least for a first one.”

“I can handle that,” chuckled Pepper.

“It might be complicated and weird and crazy.”

“My ex is now fucking Captain America, how does that sound for complicated and weird and crazy? I have no concept of normality any more,” she pointed out.

Both women laughed. Pepper wondered how on earth she’d gotten to this point, but it was damn near perfect.


End file.
